Archive for September, 2007
Monday, September 17th, 2007
The Fed Algorithm
The Fed meets tomorrow to make an historic decision: raise rates, lower rates, keep rates steady. I’ve come up with a little algorithm to outline what I think will happen with each scenario. if Fed decision rates > 5.25% then USD = Stable Stock Market = Free Fall Gold = Drop Yen = Drop Consumer [...]
4 Comments » - Posted in The Fed by RichSlick
Sunday, September 16th, 2007
Kids Going Mac Crazy!
This weekend we went to the mall to do some shopping and hit the Apple store again. As usual, it was packed with people. My son gravitated towards one of the laptops and was giggling and laughing for about 30 minutes playing with the laptop’s built in camera and Booth application. Evidently, the Booth app [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Misc by RichSlick
Saturday, September 15th, 2007
Finally Purchased A New Car
Well our car buying saga has finally ended, at least for my wife. We picked up her new car today. After spending so much time researching cars on the internet at sites like Edmunds.com and trying to get dealers to negotiate we finally made a purchase in a more “primitive” way. It turns out my [...]
4 Comments » - Posted in Misc by RichSlick
Friday, September 14th, 2007
I’ve Gone Mac Crazy, Dumping Microsoft
I’ve used Microsoft Windows and office apps for the last decade and a half but after the guys at work let me check out Vista, I finally came to the conclusion that I wanted something better. I went by the Apple store this weekend at my local mall and it was mega-packed. Unfortunately, Apple Store [...]
7 Comments » - Posted in Rants,Raves by RichSlick
Thursday, September 13th, 2007
Planetary Finance for Your Grandkids
We live in a pretty Earth-centric world of finance so today I’m exploring what it would be like to finance typical purchases on a distant planet with different orbital periods than those found on Earth. A scenario for which your grand kids or perhaps great grand kids might be real. First though, let’s take a [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Misc by RichSlick
Tuesday, September 11th, 2007
Real Inflation STILL Out of Control
Yahoo Finance had this article on health insurance premiums rising 6.1% this year and this just reinforces my notion that real inflation is totally out of control and likely to be made worse if the Fed lowers rates next week. I qualify this with the word real inflation because the skewed statistics released by various [...]
11 Comments » - Posted in The Fed by RichSlick
Monday, September 10th, 2007
Top 10 Flaws in FICO, Still Waiting for the Class Action
I’m still waiting for the day of that mega-class action lawsuit against Fair Isaac and the infamous “FICO Score” and I think we’re quickly approaching that day. The Sub-prime mess meltdown won’t leave anyone unscathed and FICO is near the vortex of the black hole. I’m going to give you my theory on the top [...]
6 Comments » - Posted in Rants by RichSlick
Saturday, September 8th, 2007
Finance.Yahoo.com vs. Finance.Google.com
I’ve been a big fan of finance.yahoo.com since its inception. I’ve had friends and co-workers tempt me into trying other sites like msn.com, finance.google or a bunch of other sites. Although I occasionally “try” other sites, the reality is that nothing beats finance.yahoo.com. I’ll give you a few reasons why I think finance.yahoo.com beats everyone [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Misc,Raves by RichSlick
Friday, September 7th, 2007
AP & Yahoo Finance Have BiPolar Disorder
What a week. I log on to finance.yahoo.com everyday to see what going on and I’ve been amused at the bipolar disorder of the Associated Press and finance.yahoo.com. On Tuesday, this was the headline: Stocks rallied on news from manufacturing growth and construction spending but then on Wednesday…. And on Thursday, the markets remained flat [...]
No Comments » - Posted in The Fed by RichSlick
Wednesday, September 5th, 2007
No More Mattel Toys For My Kids!
With Christmas just around the corner, I’m going to have to ban all Mattel toys from Santa’s list. It seems Mattel is now issuing their THIRD recall because of lead tainted toys. I wrote this post back in mid July outlining that I had stopped buying Chinese food products because of numerous scandals related to [...]